[Voyager]

I heard somewhere that dynamic headphones could be used as microphones. It seems to make sense, but would it really work? Would higher impeadence phones be better than low impeadence phones? (i.e. Senn 580s better than Grado SR-80s)If so, what kind of equipment would I need to record in stereo with them, preferably portable. I was thinking that DAT or Minidisk would be good. Would using headphones to record make the recording binaural? I was just wondering because I think it would be cool to record live music that way.

 

[chych]

So weird, having headphones converted into microphones... I guess it is possible from what I understand as your sound waves hitting the driver creating a magnetic field in the voice coil in turn becoming a signal into the microphone input, then amplified... correct me if I am wrong.

Well, using this theory, one would think low impedance phones would be better as they would be easier to 'drive', or have an increase in magnetic field -> current in the cord. But if you have a mike amplifier I'd wonder how much it would matter...

I'm sure it is possible because I have experienced simliar results with extremely cheapo headphones (actually it was a telco ear-microphone set, for some reason it refused to output out of the speaker and input from the mike, rather the other way).

And unless you split the headphone into left/right channels into separate microphone inputs, you won't get binaural... though this shouldn't be that hard to setup with a proper mixer or something...

 

[coolvij]

correct me if i am wrong, but wouldn't u also have to take the phones apart, at least in the middle? I can't see how u could make an effective LIVE recording with two transducers FACING EACH OTHER.....rather than, say, the performance...

 

[chych]

coolvij

Once you get some good headphones, you'll realize what you can do to them

So yes you can take the earcups off of the headband and position them on a dummy head effectively...
However I'd question the quality of the 'microphone'

 

[coolvij]

OH YEAH.....hehehe - that's what happens when u become a geriatric like me........

Well, actually, i was thinking of the Senn 600s for some reason (he said 580s? CRAP!)....i can't imagine them having detachable earcups....

Somebody ENLIGHTEN ME!

 

[Voyager]

the 580s earcups, and presumably the HD600, can be removed by rotating the earcups more than they want to normally. Then you can just pull them off.

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally posted by Voyager the 580s earcups, and presumably the HD600, can be removed by rotating the earcups more than they want to normally. Then you can just pull them off.

Yikes! I'm not doubting you, but it just seems dangerous.

 

[thomas]

Well, if you leave the earcups in place, you would have nice binaural mics... If you make a recording with them, and then play them back on the exact same pair of headphones, you'd get pretty amazing sound...

Detatching them would turn them into regular mics, but they won't sound as good as real mics (and you'll risk damaging your $400 headphones

 

[Voyager]

Thomas, that was my intent. to put on the headphones and listen to a live concert. Then, when i'm done, I'd play the smae recording through the same phones. I think that would be a pretty good way to reproduce sound. I don't intend to take off the earcups and use them as a seperate mic.

 

[lini]

voyager: Better forget about that. It works, yes, but not well: Sensitivity is very low and frequency response unbalanced. You'd need a specialized amplifier for such a task.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[skippy]

you'd be better off buying those panasonic mic capsules for $3. if you used headphones as mic's, you'd get questionable quality and you'd need to amplify the signal.

 

[Voyager]

What kind of mics would I need to get a pretty good quality? Is there any way I could set up a binaural mic set with out making a dummy head? How much cost am I looking at? Thanks for your replies!

 

[skippy]

$10 in parts (a lot of expensive binaural mic's use $3 panasonic mic capsules which can be easily obtained through digikey) will give some pretty amazing performance. for the price. check out the MicDIYers page for the basic design. there are lots of tweaks around to get even better performance, but the basic one will work great at most applications. usually people just have alligator clips on their mic's and attach them to eye glasses. you could also stick the mic capsules on to the back of a pair of earbuds or headphones. you could even possibly use a jecklin disc, but it wouldn't be too stealthy.

http://home.earthlink.net/~gottapes/micdiyers/main.htm

btw, it probably isn't necessary to build battery box, portable recorders usually can supply power to the mic. however, you usually get better sound when using a battery box.

 

[Voyager]

Thanks a lot for the link Skippy!

 

[beowulf]

Nice, I'm gonna try that with my MDR-CD3000.